


With dreams like these...

by vaguely_concerned



Series: Scoundrels and Thieves 'verse [16]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 05:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8389204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguely_concerned/pseuds/vaguely_concerned
Summary: Jesse has... a rough time of it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set pretty early on in McCree's time in Overwatch.

A familiar hotel room; he is lying on a bed with his boots still on, only the warm glow of streetlights outside. He looks around, searching for him - and there he is, leaned back in the armchair in what looks like a very uncomfortable position.

Jesse’s voice is so dry it barely makes it up his throat. “Hanzo.”

Hanzo glances up and looks at him silently.

“What… what’s happenin’?” Jesse tries to push up on his elbow but the pain that shoots through his chest briefly overwhelms everything else and forces a thin keening sound from his lungs as he collapses back down.

Hanzo doesn’t answer but comes over and sits down on the edge of the bed. Between the low light and his dark hair falling into his face it’s hard to properly read his expression. He reaches out, puts his hand over the place on Jesse’s chest where the hurt is worst - Jesse tries to get his breath back and covers Hanzo’s hand with his own, twining their fingers together.

“I’m…” Jesse knows he’s done something wrong, messed up in some huge way, feels it all around him, but there’s something about Hanzo sitting there that means _safe_ , means it will be okay anyway. He blinks sweat from his eyes, fighting to think through the oily heat coursing through his veins. “...not feelin’ so great.”

The whisper of Hanzo’s thumb over his skin is currently the only comforting thing in the world - his hand is slightly and blissfully cool. Jesse manages to stretch enough to brush Hanzo’s hair away from his eyes and over his shoulder. Behind it he looks sad.

Jesse’s stomach sinks. He tightens his hand on Hanzo’s. “What’s wrong?”

Getting no answer is really starting to freak him out. Hanzo strokes the backs of his fingers down Jesse’s cheek with his free hand, lingering at the corner of his mouth.

”Hey, c’mon. Say something.” Jesse tries for a smile that must come out rather manic, takes that hand and presses it lightly to his cheek. As he cups Jesse’s face Hanzo smiles too, soft and rueful. ”Declaration of Independence, that weird poem you like, the weather forecast for Belize, I’ll take anythin’ at this point.”

Still nothing.

“ _Hanzo._ ” He hears the edge of pleading in his own voice. He twists his fingers into Hanzo’s shirt to find some kind of anchor, heart hammering in his throat. For a while Hanzo sits with him, still without a word, stroking Jesse’s hair back whenever it falls into his eyes. There’s a strange pause where Jesse thinks he’ll finally say something, will finally tell him what...

The hand on his chest slips away. Hanzo closes his eyes like something hurts. Then he quietly gets up, leans down to kiss Jesse’s forehead - and he turns and walks towards the door.

“No. No, please, don’t go.” Jesse tries to hold on to him, scrambles for his hand again, but his fingers just slip away and into nothing, like he’s clutching at smoke. “Please don’t leave me here. Please. Come back. Hanzo. _Please_.”

There is blood on his hands now, staining the sheets slick and red. He feels sick, in a distant sort of way, but mostly he is filled with a whole-body thrum, like a drum skin being struck to the point of breaking.

”Hanzo.”

 Voices are calling for him from somewhere far away, buried under the echoes of gunfire, of bombs, of every weapon that has ever passed through his hands and gone on to do exactly what they were made for.

_I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – I never thought... I’m so sorry._

Jesse feels endlessly, unforgivably stupid, like the fuck-up he’s always known he is behind it all, and without Hanzo’s hand to hold on to he’s helplessly adrift in it. He wants him to come back, so much it hurts – but then Hanzo was never the one who had left in the first place.

 

\---

 

 

“Shhh, it is okay. Wake up.”

He woke with a jerk, a split second away from clocking Angela Ziegler straight in the face before his higher thought processes kicked in and gave a stern reprimand to his lizard brain. After a while he realized why her concerned face seemed so strange and closed one eye to keep his vision from going double.

“Hello there,” she said.

“...hey, doc.”

She smiled and patted his arm, glancing over at the approximately hundred goddamn monitors he was hooked up to. “You seemed distressed. Is the pain getting worse? I can still increase the dosage a little.”

“Nah,” he rasped. “Nah, just a bad dream. Nothin’ to worry about.”

She made a dissatisfied noise, pressing a few buttons and picking up her tablet. “You say that about everything I ask. It makes it hard to know when I _should_ be worried.”

“’S fine. Really.” His chest ached, but he had the feeling that had nothing to do with the piece of shrapnel that had gotten lodged there a few days ago, only narrowly missing his heart. In truth he barely remembered looking down and thinking _aw hell_ before blacking out, and the painkillers kept the worst of it at bay now. Squinting around the room he asked: “So what’s everyone up to out there?”

“Hm? Oh. Some of them are away on missions and the rest should be sleeping, but they have been in to check on you.” She paused and nodded at the nightstand. “Commander Morrison brought you a fruit basket, I believe.”

“Well, that was… nice of him.” Jesse was definitely not going to be eating much in the way of solid food anytime soon, and wasn’t that Morrison all over - hopelessly well-meaning yet absentmindedly unhelpful. Next to the fruit basket he immediately spotted Reinhardt’s all caps GET BETTER SOON card. The man even wrote in a bellow.

All of them had been there by his bed the first time he woke up. It had been - he hadn’t expected it.

Ziegler put her tablet down again. ”You should get some more sleep.”

His eyelids were admittedly growing pretty heavy, but he really didn’t want to go to sleep again. There were things in his head he didn’t... he didn’t want to sleep. ”Doctor’s orders, huh?”

She quirked a smile. ”Doctor’s strongly worded recommendation, at the very least.”

”Gotcha.”

”I’ll wake you up if it starts again. I have some work to get on with in here anyway.”

Had Jesse not been a grown man he would have wept tears of gratitude. As it was he just said: ”Thanks. doc.”

”This was a close call. You _need_ to be more careful – you must be fresh out of miracles at this point.” Her voice carried more of an edge this time.

He closed his eyes, felt his shoulders draw up towards his ears as the sick heat washed through his stomach. ”Sorry. Didn’t mean for you to have to deal with my whole...everythin’. I -  I’m sorry.”

He hated it when he was too messed up to even come up with a good sham. It always felt like conceding much-needed ground to the forest fire of reality.

She sighed. He felt a careful hand touch his shoulder. ”...it will get better. Just rest a bit. ”

”Can do.” Honestly it wasn’t as much ’can’ as ’will’; he was powerless to keep it from dragging him back down.

The last thing he was conscious of was the beeps of the machines surrounding the bed and the ghost feeling of strong, soothing fingers resting over his heart.


End file.
